Thursday, May 19, 2011

More Nastiness from Kraft

An adorable girl is sitting at a vast dinner table, with her back to a wall seemingly made completely out of glass, holding her frighteningly large head in her hand, complaining about the quality of the dinner her Valium-addled mommy has provided her with THIS time.

Judging from her stick arms, it's easy to believe that this girl is being absolutely sincere in her complaint that mommy pretty much never serves Kraft Mac 'n Cheese at this dinner table. After all, if the little girl were able to live her fantasy and shove "Kraft mac 'n cheese down my pie hole," I suspect that she'd be a lot--umm, more filled out, to put it delicately. Instead, she's "forced" to "push her food around to make it look like she's eating it," because that food is so very NOT orange pasta, cheese and salt product.

Judging from mom's reaction to the food-pushing, uncommunicative, bizarrely sitting-on-the-same-side-of-the-table-as-mommy daughter's lack of appetite, Conversation is not a regular part of the dinner experience. Mommy sees no issue with Daughter's staring blankly with a look of mild despair on her face; the food on her plate has been re-arranged, which means she must be enjoying it, so here's some more food for her to push around.

Taken as a whole, this nasty little slice of life is pretty typical of the offerings from Kraft Mac 'n Cheese these days, with a slight difference. Instead of the usual nasty little brat being indulged with forkful after forkful of the featured junk, this time we've got at least one sensible, responsible person showing a bit of concern over teaching proper, healthy eating habits to their offspring. Naturally that person is the clueless bad guy, standing in the way of Daughter's calorie-rich, nutrient-poor fantasy dinner.

Like cell phone commercials which seem to celebrate social detachment and outright rudeness, the message of this ad- that attempting to actually COOK food for your kids is a stupid waste of time which will only lead them to mock you- just makes me wonder why the makers of these spots hate society so much. Are they still trying to get over that childhood which seemed dominated by spinach and beet greens, and which featured way too few trips to the McDonald's Drive Thru window?

If so, can I suggest therapy? Or a final, cathartic confrontation with Mom and Dad? Is it too much to ask you guys to keep the scars of your upbringing out of your commercials, and stop trying to convince us Kids Know Best when it comes to proper nutrition?

And seriously, what IS it with this kid's head, anyway? Is that an allergic reaction to whatever mom put on her plate, or what?